Arbor Vitae                   Randolph Healy

II

Past a knuckle in the fabric
painted with horses, mammoths, bears,
rhinoceros, ibex, a panther, an owl,
and complex symbols and positive and stencilled hands,
find
 

The Convention, considering the incontestable
superiority of articulation over signs ...

Directly under the sun, elevation sixty degrees,
on a finger of water, as if a single downstroke,
sunflakes flicker at a frequency of eight hertz,
those parts of the waves redirecting
the sun's disc being thus tilted backwards,
smearing the image.

clause_tree(time):-!  /* true leaf */

Two hundred million years ago
some molluscs slid across this mud
which became a calcareous shale
heavy as a bottle of wine in my hand
their tracks full of dodges to the side.

A semi-circle made of red dots.
A sign composed of linked semicircles.

dash dash dash
dot dash dot

Having received the Volta award
for an invention of profound historical significance,
Bell set about eliminating sign language,
preventing the deaf from intermarrying
and requiring sterilisation of deaf girls,
legislation for which was passed in some States.

Engravings thirty feet from the floor,
huge ancient subsidence.

Dusk after dusk,
a Neolithic shepherd carefully moves
a pebble from one pouch to another
telling his sheep before shutting them up.
(Pouch empty / all home.
 Stones remaining / some lost.
 Not enough stones / ahead of the game.)

The second branch must be higher and opposite.
(Unless there is a back branch,
but then the third must be oppose the first
higher than the second.)

clause_tree(Body). /* grow branches */

A dozen or so clay models:
bull's head, a sheep, a basket, a bar of gold.

In an important transaction
the tokens were wrapped in clay pouches
on which were stamped two-dimensional
analogues of their contents.

dot dash dash dot dash dot dot

A cross inside a circle portrayed a sheep.
Cut out a notch to make it into  a ewe,
two notches and it is pregnant.

Wings thrash as a bird breaks cover.
One word, then another, and another,
until the conversation fills the sky.

senseless and incapable of reasoning
 the "translated" Aristotle
excluded from salvation
 Saint Augustine

(It was later conceded that although they could not hear
the word of God (Romans 10:17),
hope was not to be abandoned
if they could be taught to read)

Piero di Castro's miraculous cure:
Purge him first with hellebore
then shave his head on which apply
a salve of saltpetre, nitre, almond oil,
aquavit and naptha.
When on the next morning
the voice is strongly urged at his crown
he will perceive it and so learn to speak.

Ay Ee   Ay Ee
Eye   Uh     Ay Ee

A slide of a cerebellar neurone,
displaying over two hundred thousand synapses,
projects beyond the edges of the screen,
stained rich red, virginia creeper.

The negation of AND leads to all gates:
(aNANDa)NAND(bNANDb)
that is, the embryo being embedded
the primitive streak then forms
along which all later structures will align.

Constant whistling as growth leads to poorness of fit;
rustle of paper amplified so as to drown everything else;
interference and feedback from standard communications devices.

Open one of those closed surfaces if you will but do
Not expect an interior any more than if
Early in the second movement, first the basses, the
Oboes, the cellos, the trombones began to sound the same
Note in never-ending regular rhythm until the
Entire symphony capsized every instrument in unison
Over and over the same note whether in time or not
Not a hint that knowledge might be in the conn
Ections rather than in a change of state
Of any isolated unit of the system
Never mind pattern or form
Emerging from an array lacking a definite centre as if
Overhead a flock of birds decided to land
Netting a tree
Excluded from the analysis while

(aNANDb)NAND(aNANDb)

On page eighty five a population graph
suggests what it might be to be outside time:
a hundred billion people smeared over millenia,
mycelial tangle of life lines
filling every niche in a mote
floating light in an empty socket.

But perhaps just out of synch,
this mind of minds, weather balloon,
history as blur or crawl
or maybe even back to front:

Attendant pays a couple to
Drain their tank while in a  graveyard
Evening rises as black crumbs climb onto bones.
Notwithstanding, a pen inhales the tender words which
One of those lovers writes thinking of scorched leaves
Swirling upwards to dress, green and bud a diminishing tree
In whose moving light-mosaic kisses were still kisses.
No less conserved, bed-work-bed proceeds as normal but
Elsewhere there is a price as all
Those paintings are unpainted, statues brought to block
                                           and years of
Research cover great ideas.
If I had a hi-fi
             not
Pain, destitution, evil, though they mostly improve
                                    and "Richtlice
Hi sind Angle gehatene", came the answer
Over Drosophila's mosaic eye
Squinting at our compound vision as it crawled across the
Page.  Fricative to voiceless stop.
Horse to ekwal.
And we,
Treasuring every moment, drift to the
End, dissolving in the womb.

Someone left out the bison, and that the paintings,
although not truly polychromatic,
were in black and red ochre
(manganese and iron oxide).
And that they also show evidence of age and long term erosion
are covered in crystals of calcite
and have been clawed by actual bears.

The stones became an endless progression
of dimensionless points
stretching past any horizon -
each one's successor guaranteed.
(Until the fractions came.)

Hard of hearing,
deaf
mild, moderate, severe, profound,
autosomal , X-linked,
dominant , recessive,
multifactorial, chromosomal,
conductive, sensorineural , mixed

post-lingual,
pre-lingual,

non-lingual,

their world a document
laid out all around you,
key text centred, bold, underlined,
illegible, and surrounded by small print,
growing smaller and smaller…

Use your voice.